Actually less than 2% of costs (?), but there is some in there, care guidelines that make sueing harder.

Well if Pubs had cooperated IN ANY WAY, could have happened. Add it on anytime, along with a national exchange, ya lying POSs...LOL

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That's right, tort reform would save about 2% and that's it. It's not a magic bullet at all.Malpractice a Tiny Percentage of Health Care CostsMalpractice a Tiny Percentage of Health Care Costs
The best way healthcare costs could be driven down is if the US government did what the rest of the world does, negotiate healthcare cost with the providers. Public option is another good way. Of course these two options would save individuals and businesses a ton of money, but it'd involve the government and we all know that then it must be socialism ! Some people would rather go broke paying the highest cost in the world for healthcare by about double than have gubmit be involved in saving them lots of money.

It was and is the best way to drop the cost of healthcare, and has also been a major contributing factor into the rising cost of healthcare.

So, lets hear it?

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Because you can't limit a doctor's liability until you can limit the amount of damage that doctor can cause by malpracting.

And the percentage of medical costs as a result of fraud are negligible

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Not to be rude, but this type of thinking is very simplistic. It assumes that doctors are damage causing machines, which they are not. Granted there are some who are out there that who shouldn't be practicing, and there is the joke that "what do you call a med school grad who passes with C's?...Doctor." But many doctors out there are very good, and do their best to avoid malpractice. Fraud isn't necessarily the biggest medical cost for healthcare systems, but the big one is covering for the event of fraud, and policies to avoid malpractice, which is undeniably one of the biggest contributors to rising healthcare costs. This is what us the patients are being charged for, and while Texas took a step in the right direction, they did not address this that well (that being said, Texans have it a lot better than Pennsylvanians do). We need to change the definition of malpractice, and understand that our doctors are in the business of defying death and ageing, and that doing everything possible may not be the best thing, nor the safest. People seem to forget how much life expectancy has jumped over the years and the extreme cost that goes into continuing to raise it. Our expectations have gotten ahed of our technology, not saying our technology isn't as good as we think it is, but at this point it is quite costly.

It was and is the best way to drop the cost of healthcare, and has also been a major contributing factor into the rising cost of healthcare.

So, lets hear it?

Click to expand...

Because you can't limit a doctor's liability until you can limit the amount of damage that doctor can cause by malpracting.

And the percentage of medical costs as a result of fraud are negligible

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Neither of those are good reasons not to do Tort Reform. Or do you really think a Family of an 80 Year old man who dies do to a doctor fucking up, actually deserves and needs 90 Million dollars in a settlement?

Malpractice costs are just the tip of the iceberg. The far bigger problem is defensive medicine, where a provider orders a wide array of testing, knowing quite well that most of it is wasteful, just to protect themselves against litigation.

Most of the estimates for costs I've seen for defensive medicine so far are $50 billion to $75 billion annually alone. That's one big piece of the cost-containment puzzle. Other strategies such as universal electronic records and value-based insurance design (VBID, look it up) need to go into the mix as well. Tort reform should certainly be a part of any package, if we were serious.

But unfortunately, health care is now a political issue, which pretty well guarantees a generally fucked up system going forward.

Actually less than 2% of costs (?), but there is some in there, care guidelines that make sueing harder.

Well if Pubs had cooperated IN ANY WAY, could have happened. Add it on anytime, along with a national exchange, ya lying POSs...LOL

Click to expand...

That's right, tort reform would save about 2% and that's it. It's not a magic bullet at all.Malpractice a Tiny Percentage of Health Care CostsMalpractice a Tiny Percentage of Health Care Costs
The best way healthcare costs could be driven down is if the US government did what the rest of the world does, negotiate healthcare cost with the providers. Public option is another good way. Of course these two options would save individuals and businesses a ton of money, but it'd involve the government and we all know that then it must be socialism ! Some people would rather go broke paying the highest cost in the world for healthcare by about double than have gubmit be involved in saving them lots of money.

Click to expand...

Again very simple way of looking at the problem. The rising cost did not necessarily come from suits and torts, it comes from policies (as in running a gambit of expensive tests, expensive procedures, ordering very expensive treatments for when it is not necessary) and malpractice insurance that MD's, RN's, and hospitals all have to pay for.

If you are ever in the hospital, chances are you will be given Omeprazole, very expensive treatment, costs about $900 a month (taking it just once a day, at the hospital you will usually be taking it at least 2x daily). What for? For gastric reflux, possibly induced by the stress of being in the hospital, whether you have a history of gastric reflux or not, and whether or not gastric reflux can be considered a complication or minor inconvenience in your situation, whether or not you probably wont even suffer from gastric reflux while being in the hospital. So now you wipe out your stomach acid, your normal intestinal micro-biota has changed, also changing your bowel movements. Now the hospital is worried that there is a chance you might have contracted a noscomial infection like VRE. So the hospital puts you on very expensive anti-biotics to combat VRE, and very expensive broad spectrum anti-biotics, while they charge you (or your insurance) to run tests to rule out VRE. Now your normal flora all over your body is severely wiped out and you can only hope that this does not lead to an actual nasty, expensive and tough to treat noscomial infection.

This is just one example of the consequences of torts, and they chain reaction that they have caused in our healthcare system, and why the cost is rising so much. I can give you 20 different more examples like this off the top of my head alone, all of them consequences of our tort system.

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